Record no. 332. How do I cite this entry?

Beowulf

  • Genre/Type Descriptor(s)
    Translation from Old English
    Anthology
     
    Language(s)
    English
  • Translator
    Gummere, Francis B.
    Compiling Editor
    Shafer, Robert
  • Contained in
    From Beowulf to Thomas Hardy, edited by Robert Shafer
    Location Details
    Volume 1, pages 1-38
    City
    Garden City, NY
    Publisher
    Doubleday, Page and Co.
    Date
    1924
  • Relationships
    (Upstream) Reproduces in new context -> Beowulf, Gummere, Francis B. (1910)
    (Downstream) Reproduced in new context as -> Beowulf, Gummere, Francis B. (1931)
  • Descriptive Notes

    Anthology in 2 vols. Vol. 1, From Beowulf to Doctor Johnson, is xv + 715 pp., vol. 2, From Goldsmith to Thomas Hardy, is xiii + 779 pp. The Beowulf text is the complete verse translation of Gummere, most likely drawn from the 1910 Harvard Classics publication of that text.

    The translation begins:

    [Title] Prelude of the Founder of the Danish House

    Lo, praise of the prowess of people-kings
    of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped,
    we have heard, and what honor the athelings won!
    Oft Scyld the Scefing from squadroned foes,
    from many a tribe, the mead-bench tore,
    awing the earls. Since erst he lay
    friendless, a foundling, fate repaid him:
    for he waxed under welkin, in wealth he throve,
    till before him the folk, both far nad near,
    who house by the whale-path, heard his mandate,
    gave him gifts: a good king he! (2)

    And ends:

    Then about that barrow the battle-keen rode,
    atheling-born, a band of twelve,
    lament to make, to mourn their king,
    chant their dirge, and their chieftain honor.
    They praised his earlship, his acts of prowess
    worthily witnessed: and well it is
    that men their master-friend mightily laud,
    heartily love, when hence he goes
    from life in the body forlorn away.

    Thus made their mourning the men of Geatland,
    for their hero's passing his hearth-companions:
    quoth that of all the kings of earth,
    of men he was mildest and most belovéd,
    to his kin the kindest, keenest for praise. (38)

     
    Notes on Prior Documentation

    MO1 (p. 163) references this reuse of Gummere's translation in the Shafer anthology (both 1924 and 1931 editions). Not in Fry, GR, or MO2.

     
    Authentication

    BAM.

  • Last Updated
    03/28/2022